They aren't just in–line skaters — they're Aggressive Skaters. Skaters who compete for points and prestige on a professional scale. Stunts and spills, thrills and chills — and above all, speed. Intense, glorious speed. And keeping track of these breathtaking athletes requires a database program that's just as fast, just as flexible — FileMaker Pro, the award winning database software from FileMaker, Inc.

Business Challenge

Worldwide inline skating competition, at both the amateur and professional levels, is sanctioned by the California–based Aggressive Skaters Association. And they're taking this exciting, fast–growing sport out of the parking lots and into the spotlight. The ASA has developed a standardized judging system, a program for certifying judges, and it oversees professional and amateur competitive circuits, in which skaters are meticulously rated and ranked. As the ASA has grown in recent years, so has the complexity of this system. 'At first, ' observes ASA executive director Todd Shays, 'we used to use an enormous Excel spreadsheet to document individual skaters — and it took an average of two and a half days to update the official rankings!'

Successful Solution

Needless to say, that system was much too slow for a sport built on speed. That's when Todd realized that the same FileMaker Pro software he was already using to store data from competitive events could be used as the foundation for a near–automatic ranking and rating system. With help from developer Russell Kohn of Chaparral Software and Consulting Services, the ASA ended up with a FileMaker Pro–based system that reduced the ranking–and–rating process from two and a half days — to forty–seven seconds!

'It's a really cool system,' boasts Todd. 'It's fully relational, so you can go to any athlete and bring up his entire history with just a click. Or, you can search specific competitive events and examine the performance data in any number of different ways.'

It's a really cool system. It's fully relational, so you can go to any athlete and bring up his entire history with just a click. Or, you can search specific competitive events and examine the performance data in any number of different ways.

— Todd Shays, Executive Director, Aggressive Skaters Association